Female With Stress Stripes!

[Sunny_16]

Hi!

This is my first post on this forum so hello!!

I am looking for some advice about my female Betta. She has been living in my 29 gallon community tank for about a month. I started to notice that she was developing stress stripes quite frequently and that she did not look very happy in there with my other fish, so I made the decision to move her into a 15 gallon tank that I had spare. She has been in the tank for a week now (the tank was cycled using filter media from my other tank and is planted with real plants and has lots of hiding places). She is in there all by herself and in the first few days she looked dramatically calmer. Her stress stripes went and her beautiful colouration came through.

Unfortunately, in the last few days she has developed the stress stripes again, although they come and go intermittently, and I have no idea what might be causing them!! Her water parameters are great and she gets fed good quality Betta pellets and bloodworm regularly. I have no idea as to what could be wrong, but I really do not like the idea that she is so stressed out. I am not planning on putting anything else in the tank (except shrimp and snails and cleanup crew) so this will be her permanent luxury home if she makes it, but I could really do with some advice/suggestions as to why she might be so stressed out! Do i just need to let her settle in a bit more?


Thanks for listening! Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Clare

 

[FreedomFighter]

Well from my own experiences, I seem to have come to the conclusion that some female bettas are just plain stressy.

I have one female who's only ever happy when she's being beaten up by a male, alone she's stressed, in a sorority she's stressed.

I just think she's just a stressy female.

 

[lilfishie]

one of my females used to show stress stripes just after i turned the light on, or when there was food (community with other females) but the rest of the time she was fine.

i did notice the odd time after i cleaned the filter and its stronger that stressed her too

 

[Sunny_16]

Hi!,

Thanks for the replies guys.

I went to my lfs today and spoke to them about her, and they suggested that she might be getting stressed because the 15 gal might be too big for her, with too much space! I do trust the guys there as they are very generally very knowledgable about all of the fish I have bought from there, but I am quite surprised about this advice as surely any fish enjoys more space than less?!? Surely?

Anyway, I got some more plants for her and planted them so she feels more secure.

Because she seems to be stressed either way, I was wondering whether I could put some pygmy cories in with her as clean up crew? Are they ok in a 15 gallon?

Thanks for the advice!

 

[lilfishie]

that could indeed be true, some betta's just don't like big tanks, i had 1 male lived in a 3 gal, i upgraded him to an 8 gal and he did nothing but sulk, put him back in the 3 gal and he was happy as larry


Pygmy Cories will be fine, i'd suggest a good 10 or so for your tank

 

[Sunny_16]

Thank you! She seems a little happier with some more plants in their. Gonna get some pygmies tomorrow!

Thanks for the advice!

Clare x